Interceptor City, page 18
‘Maybe some.’
‘Well, good for you,’ said Jagdea. ‘Finally putting to use all those years as a multi-ace in… where was it again?’
He looked at her. She grinned.
‘Oh, right. You never said,’ she continued.
‘I never did.’
‘Because we don’t brag, and we don’t make friends.’
‘The former,’ he replied. ‘Maybe not the latter.’
Two pilots suddenly joined them without invitation, dumping their trays down and taking seats opposite. One was a hard-faced young man that Jagdea didn’t know. His flightsuit was purple, and he had a thin crease of pink scar running right up his face. The other was Gangster. She had a bottle of joiliq, which she uncorked and swigged from before filling all of the glasses.
‘So, come on, Dollface,’ the man said. ‘That was some kill.’
‘Real nice,’ agreed Gangster.
‘Real smooth,’ said the man.
‘Real smooth and nice,’ said Gangster.
‘Some chops,’ said the man. ‘You got serious hours, Dollface? Which shows? Where’d you get those hours?’
‘Tell us your glory stories,’ said Gangster.
‘Pilot Officer Gumm prefers not to share his record,’ said Jagdea.
‘What are you?’ Gangster sneered. ‘His personal frigging secretary?’
‘Should call you “Killer”,’ the man told Jagdea. ‘Or “Unlucky Charm”.’
‘Won’t fit on a visor,’ Gangster advised him.
‘Just “Bad Luck”, then,’ the man said. ‘Should call you Bad Luck. You go up, Joiliq doesn’t come back.’
‘Should call you…’ Jagdea replied. She paused, and shrugged. ‘Can’t think of a good insult. Don’t even know who you are.’
‘That’s my boy Rockcrete,’ said Gangster. She looked at Gumm, and started to wriggle off the top of her compression suit to free her arms for eating.
‘Come on, Dollface,’ she purred. ‘Just one good one.’
‘I was Aeronautica Logistic Reserve,’ said Gumm gently. ‘That’s the top and bottom of it.’
‘Yeah, but before that?’ Gangster asked. She was fighting with a sleeve that was too tight because the cuff bladder hadn’t deflated. It seemed every aviator lived in his or her compression suit at Six-Six. To hold in the stink, Jagdea thought. She would kill for a bath or even a scrub wash.
Gangster wore a tight black support vest under her suit. Jagdea had a clear view of the ink on her arms and hard belly. Half of them were actually compression bruises, Jagdea realised. Gangster sported a navel piercing, and several strings of beads and charms on chains around her neck that draped, along with her tags, into her uplifted cleavage.
‘There was no before that,’ said Gumm. ‘I was Reserve. Just like Jagdea.’
Gangster looked at Jagdea oddly for a moment. Something crossed her face, some expression. What was that?
‘You’re Vervunhive?’ Jagdea asked her.
Gangster grinned. ‘Verghast strong!’ she barked, and slapped palms with Rockcrete.
Then she frowned.
‘How’d you know that, Driver?’ she asked.
‘The accent,’ Jagdea said. Then she gestured. ‘Also the shoulder tatt. Vervunhive gang mark. I served with some.’
‘Where was that?’
‘Years ago, before I was Reserve.’
‘But where?’ asked Gangster.
‘Pilot Officer Jagdea prefers not to share her record,’ said Gumm.
That made Gangster laugh. Her necklaces jingled. Some of them were holy icons or Imperial symbols. Some were tiny pieces of junk, or what looked like human teeth because they were human teeth.
‘I brought joiliq,’ said Gangster. ‘Joiliq for Joiliq. He was a poacher. A gak-head poacher, but he could fly, until he couldn’t.’
‘Until he went up with Driver,’ said Rockcrete.
‘Shut up, ’crete,’ said Gangster. She raised her glass. ‘Joiliq!’
They echoed her, and drank. Jagdea noticed that Gumm didn’t really sip.
‘Everything here seems in short supply,’ said Jagdea, trying not to grimace at the burn as she swallowed, ‘except liquor.’
‘Plenty of that,’ said Rockcrete. ‘We cook our own. Voris and some of the crewers built a still down in assembly. Right next to the bomb farm.’
‘Shhhhh!’ Gangster snorted, pouring another.
‘That’s an excellent place to keep a still,’ said Jagdea.
‘Keeps people away,’ said Rockcrete. ‘Stuff Tarr keeps there, she should’ve dumped most of it. Says it’s safed, but safed my arse. It’s about as safe as…’
He paused, trying to complete his thought effectively.
‘Something not safe?’ Jagdea suggested.
‘Vesperus?’ offered Gumm.
‘Yeah, those things,’ Rockcrete agreed.
‘There seems to be good stuff around too, though,’ said Jagdea. ‘Not this wet start flush. Amasec.’
‘There’s plenty here,’ said Gangster. ‘Plenty. If you know where to look.’
‘And where is that?’ asked Jagdea.
‘Ask Harlot,’ Gangster replied.
Jagdea saw Wilzar across the refectory. He had fetched a tray, but had sat alone. He wasn’t eating. He was clearly not Four-A.
‘I’ll be right back,’ she said to Gumm. ‘Don’t tell any good stories while I’m gone.’
Wilzar looked up at her as she sat down opposite. His eyes were glassy.
‘All right?’ she asked.
‘They said food and water,’ he replied. His voice was reedy, and his hands had a tremble. ‘I can’t face it.’
‘You need it,’ she said. ‘Starch, calories, fluids. I’ve barely seen you since we got here. How many times have you lifted?’
‘Twice,’ he said. ‘This isn’t flying.’
‘It certainly isn’t Area Four,’ she agreed.
‘It isn’t flying, Jagdea,’ he insisted. ‘These people are psychotic. Bloody insane…’ He looked at her. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.
‘You can. You have.’
He shook his head. ‘First drop, I barely pulled out,’ he said quietly. ‘I was so bloody scared. The bird wouldn’t lift. Thought I was going to die. The rest of that sortie, I don’t even remember it. A blur. I was useless, and I don’t know how I got back intact.’
‘It’s not you, Wilzar. It’s everyone.’
‘Every turn, there was something to dodge–’
‘Vesperus is a nightmare war sky,’ she said. ‘Unforgiving and brutal. It’s not like anything I’ve–’
‘I can’t do it,’ he repeated. ‘I just haven’t got the skill. The reaction. The… nerve. Smoke by name, right?’
‘I’ve got some hours,’ said Jagdea. ‘I am still shit-scared every time I’m up. It doesn’t get better. So you have to.’
Wilzar exhaled, exasperated.
‘Be better? Like you told me before? I’m trying.’
‘I have no doubt.’
‘Now I’m grounded for two days.’
‘What did you do?’ she asked.
‘Second drop. This morning,’ he said. He wiped his mouth. ‘Winging Garrant, no less. Made a mess of everything. Garrant and Bloodspot took off after the track. I tried to keep up. I wanted to hit the burners, like they had, but everything was too close. I didn’t dare. They were already in the knife-fight, and I was still miles out. Two drops, two fights I haven’t even seen.’
‘And?’
‘One bat broke. Garrant voxed it was coming my way, ordered me to break west and chop it. Ordered me to burners.’
‘And, Wilzar?’
‘I hit afterburn,’ he said. ‘Barely missed a bloody tower, then tore my wingtip off on the gantry of a passenger dock.’
‘Not good.’
‘Barely got out of the spin. Bat was long gone. No idea whatsoever how I made it back or executed hard arrest. I’m stood down for two days while they repair the torn wing. No bird, no fly.’
He met her eyes.
‘Which is fine by me because I can’t do it anyway,’ he said.
‘You can,’ she said. ‘You will.’
‘Do better?’ he asked, hollow and cynical. ‘You telling me that again?’
‘We all have to do better,’ she replied. ‘We all have to learn how to fly this space. The drop rate is so punishing, no one’s got time to teach anything. No one’s got time to learn. No one’s even got time to pass on tips. I think it’s been like that since Six-Six set up here. No time for anything. A squadron’s supposed to support itself. Share best practice. Veterans bringing the less-experienced pilots up to spec. We never really leave flight school, Wilzar. Every lift is a lesson. But there’s no culture of that here.’
‘What do you know about squadrons?’ he asked.
‘I was combat once,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter. Look, Gumm and I, we’re trying to put some ideas together. Maybe devise some tricks to help.’
‘Gumm was combat too?’ Wilzar asked.
She nodded.
‘What sort of tricks?’
‘Techniques,’ she replied. ‘We don’t know yet. Anything that could give us an edge. Anything that might work. When we have some, I will share them with you. I promise.’
He sort of nodded.
‘Now, follow the instruct,’ she said. ‘Eat. Hydrate. That’s technique one right there. Doesn’t matter if you don’t feel like it. Get calories and fluids in you. You can’t fly on empty tanks. You’ll fatigue too fast. And g-load will knock you out faster.’
‘All right,’ he said. He picked up his fork.
She got up, and walked away, then turned and looked back at him.
‘Wilzar?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You said passenger dock? You clipped a passenger dock?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘What do you mean by passenger dock?’ Jagdea asked.
Intercept 66, Vesperus, 21:40
The storm that had been threatening all day finally rolled in late in the afternoon. Jagdea had returned to her billet to think and sleep, and by the time she woke up, the storm was moaning and lashing outside.
The darkness seemed solid, as though the smog-storm was seeping into the bell tower around the flak-boarding and shutters. Lighting had dropped to half-power, and the lamps in her room, and the hall outside, throbbed and wavered. She had an ugly sense that something was sucking power out of the deck station, or simply drinking the light.
She wasn’t properly awake, and her whole body felt more wretched than ever before. Her joints seemed loose and floppy, as though they’d all been overstretched, and her fingers felt weak. There was an ache in the base of her skull that dripped all the way down her spine.
When she peered out into the twilight of the billet hallway, she saw two pilots walking past. One was Blindside, the veteran who’d winged Gumm and Gangster the day before, and chalked a kill.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
The pilots glanced at her dourly.
‘No fly,’ said Blindside.
‘Storm?’ she asked.
‘Storm,’ he replied.
She could hear the howling gale outside, and the thump and bang of poorly secured shutters. She wondered if it was the murderous windshear or the zero-zero visibility that was keeping the squadron grounded.
Blindside and his companion were already walking on. Jagdea saw a bottle of liquor swinging from the hand of Blindside’s friend.
‘Hey,’ she called after them. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘Usual place,’ he replied.
She went back into her room, and sat on the cot. The light from the glow-globe winced and trembled. She thought about banking some more sleep, but the eerie wail of the storm outside wasn’t going to let her settle. She considered going back down to the refectory and piling up another plate.
She looked at the wall of her room. She hadn’t been able to scrounge a data-slate, or any paper, or even a stylus from anywhere, but she’d borrowed a stick of chalk from the refectory fireplace and turned the scabby wall of her room into a memorandum. She’d scratched out a list of priorities in block letters, then two sub-lists of reminders and half-formed notions. She’d even drawn in a few arrows linking items on one list to another. It had made sense before she’d gone to sleep. Half-awake, it read back as the rambling last testament of a convict in solitary.
A sudden squall of wind shrieked outside and shook the casement. The lights dimmed sharply for a moment. She’d drawn a ring around the word DOCK. She wondered why, then remembered. The things she’d written down in the rush of her combat-high earlier in the day now seemed futile and worthless, fool’s gold notions that were not worth the effort of chasing. She sat back, easing a cramp in her thigh. The storm squalled again, so hard this time, the entire tower seemed to shiver, and every billet door in the hallway rattled in its frame.
Her door kept rattling for a few moments after the gust died down. Jagdea leapt up, and threw the door open.
Voris, the fitter, was crouching on her doorstep. He looked up at her in surprise, like a discovered thief.
‘Didn’t want to wake you,’ he said.
He’d been about to leave something outside her door. He rose, and handed it to her instead. It was heavy, and she needed both hands to take it. A battered copy of the Voss-pattern spec-book.
‘Like you asked,’ he explained, and turned away.
‘Thanks,’ she called.
He shrugged indifferently, without looking back.
‘I owe you a drink,’ she said. Now he paused and glanced back. A bad-toothed grin.
‘Kind of you,’ he replied.
‘Where would I lay my hands on some, Voris?’ she asked.
‘Harlot,’ he replied.
She hefted the book back into her room, and sat on her cot, flicking through its pages. She tried to locate and read certain sections, but the combination of tiny typeface and the wobbling, fretful gloom began to give her eye strain.
She got up and laced on her boots.
Lopard was alone in the number two hangar. She found him by accident. He was standing by his bird, a snow-white Bolt with a crimson muzzle that faded back from a dark gradient at the nose.
The storm was still moaning around the tower, and through-draughts were raising little whirling dust-devils of soot off the wide deck. Smog particles were clotting the air too, smudging the light. Jagdea could feel the grit in her throat.
Lopard saw her approach. He took a lho-stick out of his silver case and perched it on his lip to light it, oblivious to the prom-stains on the decking and the reek of fuel in the air.
‘Not a good idea,’ she said as she joined him.
Lopard took the stick off his lip, and considered it.
‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘Though comparatively low down on the list of things that are not good ideas.’
He put the lho-stick back in the case and snapped it shut.
‘Not sleeping?’ he asked.
She shook her head, and looked at his plane, appreciating the muscular reassuring lines of the mighty Thunderbolt. It was very much like its pilot: handsome, dangerous and confident, but older than it looked, and more worn-out than it cared to admit. Harlot, with what seemed to her characteristic vanity, had allowed a kill tally to be marked on the fuselage below the canopy. Jagdea counted thirty-six black bars.
‘Did you fly Bolts?’ he asked her.
‘When?’
‘In your other life,’ said Lopard. ‘The one before this?’
‘This is a life?’ she asked. He smirked. She could see how he was observing her, reading her. Could he instinctively sense her affinity with the Thunderbolt, or was he studying her for other reasons?
‘Yes, I flew Bolts,’ she said. ‘Weapon of choice.’
‘And how did that go for you, Jagdea?’ he asked. His eyes seemed to be appreciating her form exactly the way she was appreciating the Thunderbolt’s.
‘It was Four-A,’ she said. ‘Four-A for a long, long time, until I missed the sky and hit the ground instead.’
‘Unfortunate,’ he murmured.
‘Inevitable,’ she replied.
‘And now you fly Strikes?’ he said.
‘Now I drive cargo,’ she said. ‘Sticking a Voss is just the culmination of a recent and unfortunate sequence of events.’
‘Like flying a Bolt into the inevitable ground?’
‘Exactly like that,’ Jagdea shrugged. ‘Anyway, it’s just temporary.’
Lopard grinned. In the curious half-light, his dark good looks seemed amplified, and his wear and tear all but invisible.
‘You really are determined to live up to your call sign, aren’t you, Driver?’ he remarked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s temporary because I’ll be dead soon.’
Lopard sniffed.
‘Anyway, where are your manners?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘On our previous encounters,’ said Jagdea, ‘you’ve all but forced liquor on me. But now…’
Lopard smiled again, and straightened his jacket.
‘What do you need?’ he asked.
‘Amasec,’ she said. ‘The good stuff. I was told Harlot knows where that is.’
‘Well, he does,’ said Lopard. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’
‘Take one of these,’ Lopard said, fishing a pair of tactical flashlights out of a derelict locker. He had led her from the hangar, through the fitting shops, past the Tomb, and then down through a labyrinth of gloomy halls and stairwells into the depths of the ruined templum. They were almost outside the official bounds of the Intercept 66 Deck, and straying into the structures that adjoined it.
The storm continued to moan and howl outside, and clouds of black dust billowed down the decaying passageways, driven by the intruding wind. On these levels of the vast building, windows, doorways and damage-punctures had not been braced and shuttered as efficiently as they were inside the base itself, merely boarded and blocked. The storm leaked in, playing in abandoned chambers, swinging broken doors on rusty hinges, driving gusts along vacated hallways, and producing odd whistles and wails as it blew in through tight cracks and loose frames. It also stank of burn-ash and hive-grave waste.
